The Ruins of an Empire

After the intensity of Rome, our rest day on the pretty little campsite at Tivoli had been just what we needed, especially as we were both now suffering with man flu. James was starting to get over his but I was a bit behind him and coming into the worst of it.

Because we had not seen enough Roman ruins yet, our next stop was to be the second largest amphitheatre after the Colosseum – the Campania Amphitheatre

Although it was only 2 hours from Tivoli, by the time we had said our goodbyes to the lovely Suzanne, emptied our grey and black tanks, filled up with clean water then done a supermarket run and a stop for lunch, we didn’t arrive at our park-up spot until well after 4pm. So we decided to do the tour the next day. I was hoping that I would be feeling a little better by then as well.

It was roasting hot as we parked up in a large car park just a short walk from the amphitheatre itself. There were a few other motorhomes parked up near us, including some that looked as though they had been there for years. It was not the most salubrious place but it seemed safe enough.

By the next morning I was feeling even worse than before. I did try training but chose one of my easiest programmes and had to keep stopping for a rest. I was amused to find that a lady had come out of one of the other motorhomes and was standing a little way off trying to copy all my moves. When she saw I had noticed she looked embarrassed and moved away, but still carried on watching me. I raised my hand in greeting and called over ‘Bongiorno’. She smiled sheepishly and came over. She didn’t speak any English, but with the help of Google translate she told me that she was having back pains and thought maybe doing some of my exercises might help. I showed her some easy back stretches and she tried them out before thanking me and wandering back to her family.

Later in the morning we walked over to the amphitheatre and it was lovely

Nowhere near the scale of the Colosseum but still remarkably well preserved

And the best bit was that there was hardly anyone there

The whole place felt so quiet and understated, nothing like the busy commercialisation of the sites in Rome

As an added bonus we discovered that next door to this amphitheatre were the remains of the old Spartacus amphitheatre where he first led the slave rebellion

There wasn’t much left of it but it felt like a real piece of history.

The Royal Palace of Caserta was on the other side of town and a few people had recommended it. But I was having trouble staying upright, I had no energy and kept having to stop to catch my breath. No part of me could face visiting a royal palace so instead we went back to the truck and had an afternoon of making plans and doing maintenance on BigMog.

We were very close to Naples at this point and had intended it to be our next stop. But we couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for another big city. Not least because Naples has a reputation for being very unsafe. I had spent hours looking for a camping spot somewhere on the outskirts but found that everywhere on our park-up apps had warnings about break-ins and thefts. Even parking during the day proved difficult – we didn’t find one car park without some kind of safety warning.

So in the end we decided to give the whole place a miss and headed straight for a campsite near Herculaneum instead.

These days, Herculaneum is not a well known name, certainly not as famous as its larger neighbour – Pompeii. But this town was also destroyed in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD and also has incredibly well preserved ruins. In fact, Herculaneum was discovered in 1709, over 50 years before Pompeii, and became a major tourist destination for many years until Pompeii took the limelight.

Despite having seen so many Roman ruins over the last few days we were still very excited to see this one.

We arrived at our chosen campsite which was easy to find and very welcoming. We had a quick lunch then walked to the train station for a short hop to the site.

Our first glimpse was looking down on the town from above and it looked remarkable

It was quite difficult working out how to get in but we made it eventually and spent the next couple of hours walking around amazed at just how intact the whole ancient town was

And not just the buildings but some of the artifacts as well

Apparently, Herculaneum was a small seaside retreat for the rich so it was full of luxurious houses decorated in lavish colours

How had those colours survived a volcano, never mind nearly 2,000 years?

We found endless statues and freezes

As well as fountains and rain-water pools

There was a bath house with all the original features still in tact

As well as the remains of a temple

With a cave underneath

Apparently most of the town is still under the rocks and archaeological study is ongoing – but the focus is on preserving what has already been uncovered rather than unearthing more

We wandered the streets for hours, taking it all in

All along what would have been the beach in 79AD were boat houses underneath great stone arches. The grizzliest finds had been made here – it seems that over 300 occupants of the town had rushed to these arches, maybe to take shelter, maybe to wait for rescue boats. Either way, when a pyroclastic surge of ash and gas at temperatures of more than 500*C flowed down the volcano at 100mph, the people had no hope and were instantly vaporised, leaving only their bones encased in ash for the next 1,800 years

These are resin casts of the original skeletons placed in the exact positions they were found. I was quite relieved to find that out, it was grim enough as it was.

There was a small museum where some of the original statues and artifacts were on display

And next to it an exhibition showing the remains of a boat that had been found

It was fascinating to wander around and learn all about the history. It was also blisteringly hot and eventually we decided we had seen enough and headed back to the train station.

The next day we drove half an hour down the road to the larger and more famous site of Pompeii.

We had carefully chosen a campsite close enough to be able to walk to the ruins so that we could leave BigMog there. Like in Naples itself, almost every car park in the area, as well as most aires and campsites, had terrible reviews citing thefts, break-ins, threatening behaviour and dishonest staff who quote one price then demand more before allowing you to leave. Our campsite was one of only a handful that was generally reported to be honest and safe.

In fact the whole area turned out to be a den of corruption and scammers.

As we walked the 1.5km from the campsite to the ruins, our first discovery was that the town centre of modern day Pompeii was quite beautiful

The second discovery was just how unpleasant many of the people were. We were accosted numerous times by so-called tourist information officers or police officers. One tried to tell us that the main gate we were walking to would not sell us tickets and we had to go into the ‘tourist office’ for help. The ‘tourist office’ being, of course, a private business who sold you tickets into the ruins at ten times the cost you could buy them at the main gate. She chased us down the street shouting louder and more angrily until eventually giving up when we ignored her.

The ‘police officer’ tried a similar trick to get us to go into a different ‘tourist office’ telling us it was illegal to buy tickets at the main gate.

Fortunately, the host at our campsite had given us a map of where to go and how to get there and assured us that the main gate was the right place to buy tickets. We had also done a bit of research of our own and so were confident enough to ignore the scam artists, persistent as they may have been.

Once at the main gate we bought our tickets without any problems and went inside. The first thing we saw was the large amphitheatre

Then on to the Teatro Piccolo

And the Teatro Grand

In the distance we could see the crater of Vesuvius itself watching over us

And down on the ground there were seemingly endless streets

Along with temples

And spectacular villas with beautiful gardens

Including the Villa dei Faun which James remembered from his visit over 25 years ago

As in Herculaneum, the frescoes and statues looked remarkable given their age

Fortunately there were not many skeletons on show, most had been removed some years ago. But one or two dotted some of the villas, those of the owners who had not managed to flee in time

I was fascinated by the large public baths which were so ornate

And the main town square with its variety of administrative buildings and temples was huge

Everywhere was heaving with people, completely different from Herculaneum

The whole thing was not at all what I had expected. I think I was expecting to see lava and ash not a whole town almost untouched after two millennia. It was absolutely incredible.

We had paid extra for tickets into the suburban villas and necropolis

There were two huge villas to look around and they were even more impressive than the rest of the ruins

Whoever had lived here all those years ago must have been very wealthy and certainly lived a life of luxury

At about 5pm, as we were walking the 2km back from the villas to the entrance gate, we noticed that all the crowds had suddenly vanished. We had the place almost to ourselves and the atmosphere changed completely

As we walked along the deserted streets we could almost hear the hustle and bustle of the Roman city around us, the ghosts of the past drifting in and out of the buildings. The whole place seemed to come to life in a way that it could never have done with thousands of other tourists milling around.

We felt incredibly lucky to have glimpsed this quiet, almost personal side of the city, albeit for only a few moments.

The site is huge and we had walked miles all the way from one end to the other and back again. We were tired and hungry. It took us four goes to find a restaurant that served pizza and was open but eventually we sat down at a table and had one of the nicest pizzas we had tried yet. A great end to a great day

There was one final thing to do in this area before we headed off and that was to walk around the crater of Vesuvius itself. We had tried to get tickets but they were in much higher demand than we had expected at this time of year so our only option was to take an hour long bus ride to the gates of the Vesuvius national park and try our luck with the last-minute tickets they sold on a lottery-type system.

But when we woke that morning there were dark, low clouds everywhere and it was raining hard. Even if we went all the way up to the gates, the chances of getting a ticket were slim and we probably wouldn’t see much up there today anyway.

We just couldn’t get motivated to do it. So instead we stayed on our campsite and had a truck day – James did a few bits of maintenance whilst I did some admin.  It was supposed to be a relaxing day but whilst working on the Mog James found that someone had stolen the plastic screw-top lid to our grey water tank. It seemed so petty – had they come up in the night whilst we were sleeping or during the day whilst we were visiting the ruins?

And had they taken it off thinking the tank was full of diesel? We quickly checked both our actual diesel tanks and were relieved to find them both as full as they had been when we arrived. But it didn’t make us feel any safer and neither did the fact that no-one we mentioned it to seemed at all surprised.

Mind you, some of the neighbours looked as though they had been at the campsite for some time themselves – perhaps someone had stolen their engine!

I didn’t sleep much that night and we were both keen to be away the next morning. Ever since we had driven into the catchment area of Naples we had been in intensely built-up areas with heavy traffic and a lot of noise, hustle and bustle. Finding safe places to stay had been very difficult and walking the streets was a case of dodging the con artists. It was not relaxing and – despite the amazing Roman ruins – it was not much fun either.

We had booked a tour of a lemon grove near Amalfi and planned to spend a few days enjoying the picturesque towns along the Amalfi coast. I hoped that it would be calm and peaceful and allow us to unwind.

I was wrong!

Firstly, we stopped at a supermarket in a nearby town and barely found our way out alive – we drove round and round in ever decreasing circles trying to find a road out that would allow a 7.5 tonne vehicle and was wide enough to fit down.

We made it out after what seemed like a lifetime but even the main roads were narrow, winding and full of mad traffic. We had cars and lorries coming at us on the wrong side of the road, drivers careening around blind bends straight into us and parked cars and overhanging balconies blocking our way. I was literally clinging onto my arm rests and James has rarely looked more stressed behind a wheel.

There is only one campsite anywhere near Amalfi and when we finally arrived we had to squeeze ourselves through a tiny archway barely big enough to fit a Fiat 500 never mind a UniMog. We really could have done without that last hurdle.

But, once through, the place itself was actually very nice – it was friendly and seemed safe. We were even shown to a spot that gave us a bit of space on either side which was a relief.

There was no way we were moving BigMog again until we had to, so we jumped on a bus early the next morning heading for our lemon tour.

The sun had finally come out and it was a lovely, warm day. It was also lovely to be able to sit back and let someone else negotiate the chaos of the roads – but even on a bus I felt my stress levels going sky high as we barely squeezed past the oncoming traffic.

The bus dropped us a short walk from the lemon grove and we arrived nearly an hour early. But the people were incredibly helpful and offered to take us around on a private tour there and then

It was beautiful

We wandered around their two gardens, hearing all about grafting lemon trees onto orange trees and finding out about the lifecycle of various fruits.

The views across the Mediterranean were spectacular

The tour included six tasters of the various drinks they make along with some lovely food. We tried limoncello, melon-cello, apple-cello, lemon-cream-cello, spicey-cello and pistachio-cello. The whole thing was just what we had needed to unwind.

After buying a pile of goodies from their shop we hopped on another bus and headed into the town of Amalfi itself. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, the name Amalfi conjures up images of expensive hotels and restaurants full of beautiful people.

But when we arrived it felt a bit more like Blackpool!

That’s possibly a bit harsh, there were some lovely parts to the town. The cathedral was an unexpected gem

The stairs up to it were the main feature of the town

The cloisters were cool and picturesque

With little temples carved into the walls

And inside it was stunning

There was a crypt underneath that I thought rivalled almost any interior that we had seen yet

How could we never have heard of this place and how could the entrance fee be only 4 Euros? The tourism industry makes little sense to me.

We wandered around the town for a few minutes and discovered that Amalfi is most famous for lemons. All the shops sold everything lemon-related that you could think of

And there was an ice cream shop that was doing a great trade in lemon sorbets

So I just had to have one!

We ambled along the sea front

And onto a pier that gave us fantastic views back over the town

But after an hour or so we had had enough. We found a bus back to the campsite and were subjected to another hour-long ‘trial by Italian road’, arriving at BigMog feeling a little queasy and a lot in need of a glass of wine!

The next day was a big day for us – it was our 11^th wedding anniversary.

Since leaving the UK we had had some amazing wedding anniversaries in the Roman town of Nimes, the ruins of Great Zim and back at the place where it all started – the Namib desert. This year we planned to spend it in Ravello, a small and less touristy town next door to Amalfi.

But in order to get there we would need to take the hour long bus ride back to Amalfi, change buses and take a second one for another half an hour to Ravello. Then do it all again to come back. And what would we find in Ravello that was any different to Amalfi?

Needless to say, when we woke up on our anniversary morning it was with less than great expectations for our day.

We stayed in bed until nearly half past seven listening to yet more rain pouring down around us. I dragged myself out to do my training under cover of the toilet block and then James cheered me up by making a cooked breakfast.

As we sat there eating, I suggested that perhaps we didn’t go to Ravello after all. James’ ears pricked up and he looked at me with renewed hope in his eyes. But where could we go at the last minute that would make our day special?

I had found a place called Paestum about 100km away which was likely to take us about three hours on these roads – and the first part of the drive would be along the nerve-wracking, narrow roads we had been tormented by over the last couple of days. But Paestum was another Roman archaeological site with some of the most intact temples in the world and it looked pretty.

Plus it would take us well away from Naples.

So we decided to do it and hope that we could at least salvage the afternoon of our anniversary and find somewhere decent for dinner that evening.

To be honest, the drive back through the town was not as bad as we had expected. Due to a convoluted one-way system it was shorter than the way in and I think the traffic was a little quieter.

Once on the main road, however, the roads were still narrow and the traffic was still intense. We drove for over an hour through heavily built-up areas with endless noise and traffic and I started to realise just how large an urban sprawl Naples is. When I looked at the map to find out whether we would ever see anything green again, it dawned on me that we had been within the Naples catchment area since leaving the Campania Amphitheatre a week ago. 

It was no wonder we were feeling hemmed in and in need of some peace and quiet.

We drove on, looking miserably out of the window at the urban jungle all around us but slowly it started to thin out and after a couple of hours, greenery appeared. We carried on, feeling our stress levels ebb away along with the traffic, until finally we reached the small town of Paestum itself.

We had found an aire very near the temples and headed straight for it. When we arrived it was literally a breath of fresh air

I jumped out of the Mog and stood looking out over the mountains feeling the weight of the world dropping off my shoulders

There was very little to Paestum, one road with a couple of restaurants and souvenir shops. But as we walked along we thought it was perfect.

We caught glimpses of the Roman temples through the bushes

And were astonished at how large and seemingly untouched they were

I had found a nice-looking restaurant very close by with good reviews on Google maps and when we walked over to peer in it seemed perfect. But it didn’t open for another couple of hours so we spent that time breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the views

When we returned to the restaurant, we were ten minutes early but the owner kindly gestured for us to sit down and said he would be with us soon. We were happy to wait and look out over the pretty courtyard

We ordered pasta, followed by a main and finished off with a desert accompanied by a lovely bottle of wine recommended by the owner himself

It was all absolutely delicious – another fantastic find, almost as good as my birthday meal.

As the owner served us our pasta dishes I told him that we were celebrating our anniversary and his face lit up. He blew us both kisses and dashed inside returning a few minutes later with flowers for the table.

During our main course he brought out two glasses of Prosecco and said they were on the house. What a perfect way to celebrate – we had no regrets whatsoever about running away from Amalfi!

As we wandered back to BigMog, with full stomachs and satisfied smiles, we glimpsed the temples again, this time even more beautiful in the glow of the lights

And as the sun set behind the mountains the world seemed peaceful once more

The next day we visited the small museum and learnt all about the history of the temples.

There was also an exhibition about ‘The Diver’ which is apparently very famous

And this was a crypt that was stolen and then found and seized by the financial police many decades later

How do you steal a crypt?

We then spent a happy couple of hours walking around the site itself

There were three main temples

No-one is entirely sure who they were dedicated to but probably Neptune, Hera and Athena.

Unlike most historic sites, we were allowed to actually go inside these temples and get an up close view

It was incredible to be able to get so close to something so full of history

There were lots of other ruins in between the temples

Including one strange structure that had an information board by it saying it had either been built for virgins and married women to lie on naked whilst discussing sex or for drying wheat…

I suspected those two options said more about the archaeologists studying them than it did about the structures themselves!

This buried building was apparently an empty crypt dedicated to the founder of the town and was the most revered building in the area – even being left intact by various subsequent invading forces

We were beginning to relax and enjoy ourselves again in this beautiful and peaceful place. But, as ever, it was not to last.

Later that day, James was investigating why BigMog seemed to have been losing power over the last couple of weeks. He checked the diesel filter and found that we had a big problem

Diesel bug.

Diesel bug is a bacteria that can start growing in fuel tanks when water gets into the fuel. We had no idea where the bad fuel had come from but unless we could find some treatment quickly BigMog was going to get very sick.

James put in a new filter to help alleviate the symptoms but needless to say we were not going to be able to enjoy our idyllic surroundings for much longer. Our priorities had suddenly changed…